


What Comes After

by ray0062



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age: Inquisition
Genre: Angst, Gen, Trespasser DLC, Trespasser DLC spoilers, maybe a little fluff, mostly angst
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-10-24
Packaged: 2019-01-22 12:32:46
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12481656
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ray0062/pseuds/ray0062
Summary: Lavellan finds Solas, 2 years after Corypheus' defeat. The love, and the pain, is still there.





	What Comes After

"I suspect you have questions."

He had the audacity to smile, then. Punctuating his painfully obvious statement with a facial expression akin to an insult, and it still felt as if she'd been punched through the chest.

"Solas…" She whispered, her body straining to reach out and trace his jawline, just to see he was real. Just to check he was there. Her mind knew better, and her hands stayed firmly at her sides, nails digging into her palm. She did have questions, but she didn't know where to begin. She had wanted to question him ever since that dreadful moment in Crestwood, ever since he looked at her with pained eyes and simply disappeared into the wilderness. Of course she had fucking questions. He knew she had questions, and he knew she wouldn't be able to ask them.

"The Qunari," she cleared her throat, grasping on to threads of false confidence that were quickly slipping through her fingers. "They think you're an agent of Fen'Harel. I wanted to get to you before they did, but it seems you had little trouble defending yourself."

He smiled again, then, but it was sad. It was so, painfully sad, and she knew she would not like what came next. Her throat was dry, a thin film of sweat covered her body, and she was tensing almost every muscle in her body in an attempt to stop shaking.

"I fear the truth is much simpler," his voice broke, then. Only slightly, but it was noticeable; the musical lilt in his words had gone flat. "And much worse, than the Qunari believe."

The Anchor screamed, threads of magic leaping from her palm as if trying to pull her apart. She screamed with it. Not just for the pain it caused, but for the knowledge that had suddenly come bearing down on her. Falling to her knees, she saw as he reached out to her, and felt his hands support her collapsing frame. 

"You're telling me-" She hissed through clenched teeth as the mark flared again, and looked him in the eyes. "The Anchor. It's getting worse." 

"I know, vhenan." And then his eyes glowed. His eyes glowed, and suddenly the pain was gone. 

She was terrified.

She had stared into the corrupted eyes of Red Templars, stared into the eyes of dragons before sending them to their deaths, stared into the soul of a Tevinter magister before making him disintegrate before her. Now she was staring into the eyes of a man she knew, and loved, and had never felt more terrified. It was clear that she did not know him, after all.

She stood, and he stood with her, hands still gripping her forearms. Her traitor heart thudded heavily in her chest, and she pulled her hands back to rest in his palms. She would allow herself this comfort, at least. She felt naked, bare faced before him, and almost laughed at the absurdity of everything she'd learnt from that simple sentence. It's not that he knew she wouldn't ask the questions, but that he would answer them with nothing more than a suggestion.

"You're Fen'Harel." She said. Coldly. He moved to release his hold on her, but she squeezed his hands in protest. His angular features softened with her unspoken request. Pulling her closer, he tentatively cupped her cheek, thumb sweeping away a hot tear she hadn't even noticed was there. 

"So now you know." He smiled his sad smile. "What was the old Dalish curse? May the Dread Wolf take you."

She closed her eyes and leant into the warmth of his palm. His thumb was tracing the lines of her face, the bridge of her nose, the arch of her brow, lazily drawing patterns where the vallaslin used to adorn her face. She wanted to frame this moment, to step from her body and to see the picture that they made. To look as the predator held his prey, and she relished in it. Fen'Harel. The one part of her culture she had been taught to fear. The curses and blessings rang in her ears, and she realised the amount of times she had shouted 'Dread Wolf take you' as she picked off her enemies with her arrows. 

Slowly, she opened her eyes, and studied the man before her. He was holding his breath, eyes fluttering across her face as if trying to find some sense in what she was doing. Still, he seemed to be soaking in the moment as much as her. She reached out towards his face, allowing herself to trace his jawline, to brush across the dusting of freckles on his nose, to stroke the scar above his brow. Smiling, she thought back to Solas. The apostate elf with a love of the fade, and a strange knowledge of all things elvhen. It was almost hilarious how obvious it was now, down to the wolf bone amulet he refused to remove no matter the situation. She thought back to the hours they spent in the rotunda, a tangle of limbs as they both tried to find a comfortable position to read the same book. The times she was seated behind him as he painted, talking endlessly about nothing in particular. With fondness, she remembered the time she made as many variations of tea as she could in an attempt to find one that he didn't detest, as he put it. It hadn't worked. She remembered laughing as she recounted the butterflies of her emotion to Dorian in careful whispers, in an attempt to avoid alerting the elf below - it couldn't get more childish. 

The same man stood in front of her now, and bared himself to her. She had never seen him more powerful, yet also never seen him more vulnerable. His armour was gripped around the definition of his body, and she could feel power almost radiating from him, but the man before her was weak. 

"No."

He dropped his hand suddenly, alarmed at the ferocity in her voice.

"No." she repeated, softer this time. "You are no Dread Wolf."

"Ir abelas, vhenan. I can't change this part of me."

She laughed, holding his chin in her hand. "No, Solas. You're not the Dread Wolf. You're not a Dread Wolf. I have been taught to fear him - you - my entire life, to watch my step, to avoid his path. You are not the man I have been taught to fear. You helped free slaves, yes? That's how you knew the spell to remove my vallaslin?"

He nodded, tentatively reaching out to hold her waist.

Taking a step towards him, she closed the space between them. She wrapped her arms around him, and cried.

"We - the Dalish - have been so wrong, about so many things. You were a good man. You are a good man. I can't see the him in you, I can't see the criminal. I can only see you."

She was sobbing now, struggling to get her words through her broken façade. Resting his chin on her head, he took his turn to speak.

"You were too real. I had been asleep for millennia, and only awakened a year before I joined you. It was like…" She could feel him swallow. "It was like walking through a world of tranquil. Everyone had their connection to the Fade severed, because of me, because of what I did. I am a criminal, simply not the criminal you expected."

She sighed into the fur wrapped around him. "What do you mean, I was too real?"

Solas pulled away from her then, almost grimacing, but he still let his touch linger on her elbow. Gently guiding her, he took her to sit overlooking a grand ruin, the crumbling walls a whisper of the memories that could be held within. She shuffled towards him, a difficult feat in scout armour, and lay her head on his shoulder. Light poured in and trickled across the landscape, illuminating strands of grass and dusty pink petals. It was such a beautiful place, she observed.

"I didn't see the people here as… people. I am not quite sure how I saw them. They were simply wrong. People were so terrified of the Fade, of what was behind the Veil that I created, and it sickened me." He traced lines across the back of her hand, which she had let rest on his thigh. "Then I met you, and truly, I felt the whole world change. You fought against every assumption I had made, you challenged my intelligence, approached me with a level of charm and wit I did not expect from someone of this time. You made me rethink every conclusion I had reached."

"I fell in love with you, vhenan." He hung his head, and she could see the tears rolling quietly down his cheeks. "The Dread Wolf. I saw the slave markings on your face, and it reminded me of all that I had stolen from this world. You deserved better."

She touched her face instinctively, knowing it was now bare. Squeezing his hand, she attempted to comfort him, but he continued.

"You were too real. It meant that everyone else was real, and made what must come next so much harder."

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! Considering squeezing a few more chapters out of this, because I love the pain of a doomed romance. Let me know if you want more, or think it's best as a one-shot. Thanks again <3


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